Charting The Emerging Field Of Japanese Diaspora Archaeology

This book examines the Japanese diaspora from the historical archaeology perspective—drawing from archaeological data, archival research, and often oral history—and explores current trends in archaeological scholarship while also looking at new methodological and theoretical directions. The chapters include research on pre-War rural labor camps or villages in the US, as well as research on western Canada (British Columbia), Peru, and the Pacific Islands (Hawai‘i and Tinian), incorporating work on understudied urban and cemetery sites. One of the main themes explored in the book is patterns of cultural persistence and change, whether couched in terms of maintenance of tradition, “Americanization,” or the formation of dual identities. Other themes emerging from these chapters include consumption, agency, stylistic analysis, community lifecycles, social networks, diaspora and transnationalism, gender, and sexuality. Also included are discussions of trauma, racialization, displacement, labor, heritage, and community engagement. Some are presented as fully formed interpretive frameworks with substantial supporting data, while others are works in progress or tentative attempts to push the boundaries of our field into innovative new territory. This book is of interest to students and researchers in historical archaeology, anthropology, sociology of migration, diaspora studies and historiography. Previously published in International Journal of Historical Archaeology Volume 25, issue 3, September 2021

In the past few years, there has been a growing appreciation by Western scholars of the vast scale, great achievements, and methodological originality of Japanese archaeologists. However, an understanding of the results of their work has been hampered in the West by a lack of up-to-date and authoritative texts in English. This book provides Western readers for the first time with a uniquely East Asian perspective of Japanese archaeology. Prehistoric Japan is organized into 16 chapters covering the environment, the history of the Japanese investigations of their past, the peculiarities of Japanese scholars' interests and methodologies, the organization and material culture of previous Japanese societies, economic trade and the question of immigration, the political unification of Japan, and the relationships between the core islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu to Hokkaido in the north and the Ryukyu Islands to the south.

Shows how Japanese anxiety about overpopulation was used to justify expansion, blurring lines between migration and settler colonialism. This title is also available as Open Access.

Latin America is home to 1.5 million persons of Japanese descent. Combining detailed scholarship with rich personal histories, Daniel M. Masterson, with the assistance of Sayaka Funada-Classen, presents the first comprehensive study of the patterns of Japanese migration on the continent as a whole. When the United States and Canada tightened their immigration restrictions in 1907, Japanese contract laborers began to arrive at mines and plantations in Latin America. The authors examine Japanese agricultural colonies in Latin America, as well as the subsequent cultural networks that sprang up within and among them, and the changes that occurred as the Japanese moved from wage labor to ownership of farms and small businesses. They also explore recent economic crises in Brazil, Argentina, and Peru, which, combined with a strong Japanese economy, caused at least a quarter million Latin American Japanese to migrate back to Japan. Illuminating authoritative research with extensive interviews with migrants and their families, The Japanese in Latin America tells the story of immigrants who maintained strong allegiances to their Japanese roots, even while they struggled to build lives in their new countries.

"The many changes that have taken place in Japan as a result of the period of rapid economic growth - including the imbalance in development of primary and secondary industry; the tremendous expansion of heavy industry accompanied by the gradual decay of agriculture; the failure to establish a healthy productivity cycle; the destruction of the natural environment and traditional patterns of life and especially the emergence and rapid growth of social apathy due to the lack of a firmly-established base on which to build the burgeoning supra-modern 'popular society' - have renewed interest in the work of Yanagita Kunio (1872-1962), generally known as the founder of ethnography in Japan." "Yanagita consistently expressed his concern about the effects of Japan's hasty modernization on the lives and values of its ordinary citizens. Critical of the Meiji establishment's policies for their short-term perspective on Japan's economic success in the international arena, Yanagita maintained an independent position and, through his work, attempted to overcome the problems caused by the direct importation of European ideas into Japan by isolating, recording and analysing the unique features of Japanese life, using them to present an alternative modernization theory which incorporated a fundamental restructuring of Japan's domestic economy and its social system. To Yanagita, the significance of ethnography lay in the way it could reconstruct the indigenous values of the past. His contention was that an understanding of indigenous cultural values and a revitalization of the traditional communal spirit were essential to the establishment of a moral foundation for Japanese society in the years of great change between the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras and, by extension, to Japan today." "The Origin of Ethnography in Japan presents a timely re-evaluation of the writings of Yanagita Kunio. Chapter One examines his early writings on agro-politics, Chapter Two discusses the background to Yanagita's interest in ethnographic studies with reference to his work on Japan's folk religion and Chapter Three demonstrates how Yanagita's theory of agro-politics was combined with his interest in cultural studies, leading him to explore a broader theory of social development. Chapter Four summarizes Yanagita's views on some of the major political issues of his time, while Chapter Five concentrates on the methodology known as 'Yanagita Ethnography' and compares Yanagita's method and research aims with those of the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski. Lastly, Chapter Six deals with Yanagita's idea of communality, which he believed to be central to the understanding of human relationships and social structure in traditional Japan, and his view that communality could be utilized to bring people together at the family, village and national levels in contemporary Japan."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Archaeology of Seeing provides readers with a new and provocative understanding of material culture through exploring visual narratives captured in cave and rock art, sculpture, paintings, and more. The engaging argument draws on current thinking in archaeology, on how we can interpret the behaviour of people in the past through their use of material culture, and how this affects our understanding of how we create and see art in the present. Exploring themes of gender, identity, and story-telling in visual material culture, this book forces a radical reassessment of how the ability to see makes us and our ancestors human; as such, it will interest lovers of both art and archaeology. Illustrated with examples from around the world, from the earliest art from hundreds of thousands of years ago, to the contemporary art scene, including street art and advertising, Janik cogently argues that the human capacity for art, which we share with our most ancient ancestors and cousins, is rooted in our common neurophysiology. The ways in which our brains allow us to see is a common heritage that shapes the creative process; what changes, according to time and place, are the cultural contexts in which art is produced and consumed. The book argues for an innovative understanding of art through the interplay between the way the human brain works and the culturally specific creation and interpretation of meaning, making an important contribution to the debate on art/archaeology.

True to its initial aims, the latest volume of the Journal of Greek Archaeology runs the whole chronological range of Greek Archaeology, while including every kind of material culture.

Erica Gibson’s comprehensive guide provides a much-needed catalogue of ceramic makers' marks of British, French, German, and American origin found in North American archaeological sites. Consisting of nearly 350 marks from 112 different manufacturers from the mid-19th through early 20th century, this catalog provides full information on both the history of the mark and its variants, as well as details about the manufacturer. A set of indexes allow for searches by manufacturer, location, mark elements, and common words used. This guide will be of interest not only to historical archaeologists, but material culture specialists, collectors, museum professionals, students, art historians, and others interested in ceramics.